My Zed wasn't ready for the weekend so I convinced my wife to let me drive her '09 G37S at an open lap day I attended yesterday. The car handled much better than I anticipated, but about halfway through my first session I started to notice brake fade that seemed to be increasing pretty rapidly. I finished my session taking it easy on the brakes, but found the front rotors scratched to hell and back when I got back to the staging area. Her car only has about 18k on it, and I know for a fact that they were smooth before I started because I checked everything twice while changing the oil on Friday. They're not warped, and they don't squeek. Should this have happened on this car with the factory upgraded brakes? Is anyone aware of this being an issue on this particular vehicle?

Apolgize in advance if this should be in another thread.

 

Stock pads?

 

Yeah, sorry. Everything is stock on the car except for some Fujita intakes I picked up from a bud pretty cheap. Rotors, pads, lines, brake fluid...all stock.

 

Have you pulled the pads out to see how they look?

 

No not yet. We just got back a few hours ago and it's on my list of things to do tomorrow. My guess is that the pads chunked and started grooving the rotors. I just don't know why. I did a couple good warm up laps before getting on it and figured the brakes had warmed up at a reasonable rate. After the drive home today ( about 4 hours ), I did notice that they had smoothed out and don't look near as bad as they did yesterday.

 

With the weight of a g37............the brakes are working HARD.....not to state the obvious. You are on the right track I would think......with the pads chunking/deteriorating.

 

The new Akebono setup is notoriously bad. It's really lucky you didn't have a catastrophic failure at the track.

The problem is that the brake pads fad extremely quickly under heavy use, and the brake fluid boils quickly after sustained hard braking. Get a brake fluid flush and put in Super blue, then get new racing brake pads. I like EBC, although I don't really know what'll fit the new brake package. That should help out a lot.

For more information google "Car and Driver 370Z Nismo brake failure" or something along those lines.

I just found the link:

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...ng_lap-feature

 

Good info guys, thanks for the help. Shiv- I can see changing to the EBC's, but this car will probably never see the track again. I'll look into changing over to those as well as changing out the brake fluid. If the rotors can't be turned, would it be wise to look into something other than factory replacements, being that it won't be run this hard again?

Anyone know if this can be taken to the dealership and repaired under warranty?

 

LOL......



-J

 

so ummm...............what does the wifey think of all this????

-J

 

Groved rotors are really no big deal and if they really concern you have them turned at pretty much any NAPA type store for about $10 a rotor. Just make sure there us no cracking. And as others have mentioned I would at least flush the fluids out of the calipers since most likely it is now a bit burnt and some gas in there from fluid boil.

The pads are most likely gone though due to chunking. The G35/G37 pads were never designed for the amout of heat produced with multiple laps on track. if you do return to the track then look at a good compromise pad such as the Hawk HP+ or Carbotech XP8's.

There a great resource on pads for your 350Z in the track pad database up above this thread. Just about every combination has been tried and logged in there.

 

That was probably her typing that part

 

Same thing happened to a buddy in his 370Z at the track. It was repaired under warranty without issue.

 

Don't use your wife's car for track events anymore. Nothing good can come out of it...

 

Wow. Thats impressive.

 

I'm lucky that she comes from a "car guy" family. Her brother runs the 24 hours of LeMons in a beater 240 and also has a NISMO Z. Her dad's got a couple nice, but old, Jags in his garage. She's very understanding when it comes to my obsession with cars. Just found out today that my local shop's got a set of the "S" rotors from an '09 lying around. He's going to change them out for me on Thursday and I'll go ahead and upgrade to a better pad as well.

 

Ha! She's cool with it as long as I fix what I eff up. Only reason I used her car was because mine was down!!!

 

its pisses me off when people run there unprepared stock vehicle on a track, the pads don't hold up for obvious reasons, and you think its warranty. why would this even remotely be covered under warranty? People so often wonder why dealerships are hesitant to do warranty repairs.... people like this everyday come through expecting everything for free. A lot of the same reason our insurance rates are so high.

stepping off the soap box now...

 

I agree...............

OP could have been a few laps shy of coming out like that nismo article.....

Surprised the track allowed it too......or tech inspection didn't voice concern? etc???

-J

 

They were probably fine during tech. The issues came up during the first session. During tech we can not judge how well a pad is going to do per car especially if it's an unknown pad.